Klaus Huber – 100

As a composer, musicologist and highly esteemed teacher, Klaus Huber was a formative figure in music after the Second World War – idiosyncratic, not belonging to any school, tradition-conscious and innovative, a meticulous craftsman, speculative mind and passionate campaigner for a more humane world. On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Klaus Huber, who spent the last two decades of his life in Bremen, the association tritonus, which he co-founded there, is organising a festival at Plantage 13 in Bremen from 17 to 30 November 2024, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. During four concerts, his music will enter into a dialogue with older works that were important points of reference for Klaus Huber, as well as with contemporary compositions that refer to him. The programme will be shaped by musicians who have worked closely with him, such as Ensemble Recherche or Carin Levine, but also by young ensembles that will bring Huber’s music to life for a new generation.

The first concert focuses on the only artistic collaboration between Klaus Huber and Younghi Pagh-Paan: two separate works for accordion and alto flute and guitar, which can also be played simultaneously – a utopian encounter between two independent musical beings. After their premiere in 1993, the two pieces will be heard as a joint composition again for the first time in this concert. The programme also includes a version for ensemble of Ein Hauch von Unzeit III from 1972. The Steimel-Müksch Duo will perform the world premiere of a piece by Tobias Klich that references the situation of the spatially dispersed musicians in Huber’s piece.

The second concert focuses on the viola d’amore instrument: A central piece in Klaus Huber’s late work is the piece … Plainte… for viola d’amore in third-tone tuning, which exists in several versions, two of which will be heard in this concert: the original solo version from 1990 and the extended version for viola d’amore, guitar and percussion, based on a late poem by Ossip Mandelstam. The concert programme also includes other recent works for this instrumentation, including pieces by CHEN Chengwen and Farzia Fallah, both graduates of the University of the Arts Bremen, and by Kaija Saariaho, who studied with Klaus Huber.

‘Seeking out the unfulfilled in the past’ – with this quote from Ernst Bloch, Klaus Huber often reminded us to keep reviving and developing the unused potential of music history. In this context, the planned performances of the string trios by Webern and Schönberg will be presented in dialogue with Huber’s string trio Des Dichters Pfug, played by Trio Recherche, for whom this work was composed in 1989. This combination also highlights the contrapuntal tradition in which Huber’s music is rooted. The programme is complemented by further solo works by Klaus Huber for cello (1976) and violin (2010).

Huber’s second string quartet … von Zeit zu Zeit… is juxtaposed with Bartók’s Fifth String Quartet, allowing it to be placed in music history in a meaningful way. The Bremen String Quartet Pulse, founded by violinist Johannes Haase, will perform these two pieces. During this concert, author Corinne Holtz will also read excerpts from her biography of Klaus Huber, which is due to be published in 2024.

Further information:
tritonus-verein.de

Dates

November 17 – 30, 2024
Plantage 13, Bremen